Red and white confetti, balloons and a giant replica of the famous hourglass-shaped bottle signaled the official opening of Coca-Cola Canada’s headquarters on King Street East on Thursday.

The company’s move from East York, several years in the making, also shows how public transit, the condo boom, and pedestrian-friendly neighbourhoods are drawing big corporations to downtown Toronto.

For the opening ceremony, Coca-Cola executives, Mayor Rob Ford, city councillor Doug Ford, and MPP Glen Murray (Toronto Centre) joined 400 employees who will work in the building.

The new three-storey, 100,000-square-foot office was built on top of the Toronto Sun building on King Street East, near Sherbourne Street.

The Canadian arm of the global beverage giant touted the office’s environmentally friendly design, use of recycled furniture, and soon-to-come LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified status.

“It’s a place where employees can collaborate, learn, and grow,” said Nicola Kettlitz, president of Coca-Cola Ltd, told the crowd.

It has taken decades to revitalize the King Street East area, an effort that is coming to fruition with the Distillery District and redevelopment of Regent Park, said city councillor Pam McConnell, who represents the area.

“This is a wonderful work place and reuse of the Toronto Sun building. It’s a fabulous build out of what we envisioned in the 1990s,” she said.

“I think these things just take time but there has to be the right combination before a major corporation will take the step to move their headquarters.”

For Coca-Cola Canada, the right combination included a neighbourhood teeming with restaurants, bars, shops, and other local businesses, as well as easy access to public transit.

The company estimates that about 60 per cent of their employees live east of Yonge Street, with the majority residing south of Highway 401.

It had been in the former headquarters in Thorncliffe Park since 1965. The site, then on the outskirts of Toronto, started out as a bottling plant and distribution facility. As the city filled in around the plant, it was not an ideal place for the hundreds of delivery trucks that came and went 24 hours a day, John Guarino, president of Coca-Cola Refreshments Canada, said in an interview.

After bottling and distribution were transferred to the Brampton facility, two-thirds of the building was left empty, he said. “We were sitting on a lot of wasted space.”

Coca-Cola won’t reveal the cost of the move, saying only that it’s “a good economic move because we had so much unused space,” Guarino said.

The modern office space – lots of natural light, 36 meeting rooms, and common areas with big comfy couches – will boost collaboration, team work, and productivity, Guarino said. “By making it a great place to work, we will become better at the work that we do.”

The focus on walking in the neighbourhood and taking public transit also jives with Coca-Cola’s recent pledge to address obesity.

“For us it’s about balancing calories in and calories out,” Guarino said. “We’re going to encourage everybody to use the stairs instead of taking the elevator.”

Coca-Cola is the latest of a string of big companies to open big offices downtown. Google Canada unveiled its new Toronto office on Richmond Street West last November. Telecommunications giant Telus consolidated 15 offices across the GTA into new office space near Union Station in 2009.

Corus Entertainment, engineering firm SNC Lavalin, and customer relationship management firm Salesforce.com also have large offices in the downtown core.

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